medea

LUIGI CHERUBINI

conductor
Carlo Rizzi
Opera in three acts
Libretto by François-Benoît Hoffman
production
David McVicar
Italian translation by Carlo Zangarini
set designer
David McVicar Saturday, October 22, 2022
1:00–3:50 pm
costume designer
Doey Lüthi
New Production
lighting designer
Paule Constable
projection designer
S. Katy Tucker The production of Medea was made possible by
a generous gift from Daisy M. Soros and the
movement director
Jo Meredith Rosalie J. Coe Weir Endowment Fund

Additional funding from The Jaharis Family

Foundation, The H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang, Ph.D. and
Oscar Tang Endowment Fund, and Barbara Tober,
in memory of Donald Tober

A c0-production of the Metropolitan Opera, Greek

National Opera, Canadian Opera Company, and
Lyric Opera of Chicago

maria manetti shrem

general manager
Peter Gelb Throughout the 2022–23 season, the Met honors
jeanette lerman - neubauer Ukraine and its brave citizens as they fight to
music director
Yannick Nézet-Séguin defend their country and its cultural heritage.
 2022–23 season

The seventh Metropolitan Opera performance of

medea
LUIGI CHERUBINI’S

co n duc to r
Carlo Rizzi

in order of vocal appearance

h a n d m a i d en s
Brittany Renee
Sarah Larsen

g l au ce
Janai Brugger

cr eo n t e
Michele Pertusi

giasone
Matthew Polenzani

l e a d er o f t h e k i n g ’ s gua r d
Christopher Job

medea
Sondra Radvanovsky*

n er i s
Ekaterina Gubanova

m e d e a’ s ch i l d r en
Axel Newville
Magnus Newville

Saturday, October 22, 2022, 1:00–3:50PM

 This afternoon’s performance is being transmitted live
in high definition to movie theaters worldwide.
The Met: Live in HD series is made possible by a generous grant from
its founding sponsor, the Neubauer Family Foundation.
Digital support of The Met: Live in HD is provided by Bloomberg Philanthropies.
The Met: Live in HD series is supported by Rolex.

Chorus Master  Donald Palumbo

Musical Preparation  Howard Watkins,* Carol Isaac,
Joseph Lawson, Jonathan C. Kelly, and Patrick Furrer
Assistant Stage Directors Eric Sean Fogel, Jonathon Loy, and
Doug Scholz-Carlson
Assistant Set Designer Hannah Postlethwaite
Stage Band Conductor Joseph Lawson
Fight Director  Doug Scholz-Carlson
Intimacy Direction  Doug Scholz-Carlson
Italian Diction Coach  Nicolò Sbuelz
Prompter Carol Isaac
Met Titles Christopher Bergen
Additional Casting Tara Rubin, CSA, and Spencer Gualdoni
Scenery, properties, and electrical props constructed
and painted by Metropolitan Opera Shops
Costumes constructed by Metropolitan Opera Costume Department; Das
Gewand, Düsseldorf; Arel Studio Theatrical Costumes, New York; and Suitable
Costumes, Toronto
Costume fabrics painted by Kostuemmalerei Dieckmann, Berlin
Wigs and makeup constructed and executed by Metropolitan Opera Wig and
Makeup Department
This production uses lightning and fog effects.
Medea is performed by arrangement with Hendon Music, Inc., a Boosey & Hawkes
company, Sole Agent in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico for Casa Ricordi / Universal
Music Publishing Ricordi S.R.L., publisher and copyright owner.
This performance is made possible in part by public funds from the New York State
Council on the Arts.
Before the performance begins, please switch off cell phones and other electronic
devices.
Please remember that face masks are required at all times inside the Met.
Yamaha is the Official Piano of the Metropolitan Opera.
The Met will be recording and simulcasting audio/video footage in the opera house
today. If you do not want us to use your image, please tell a Met staff member.

* Graduate of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program

 Synopsis

To regain his birthright, the kingdom of Iolcus, stolen from him by his half-
brother, Pelias, the hero Giasone sailed in his ship, the Argo, to the distant land
of Colchis in search of the fabled Golden Fleece. There, he met and fell in love
with Medea, daughter of King Aeetes and a sorceress, who betrayed her family
and helped him steal the fleece. To stall the pursuit of Aeetes and his army, she
then killed her own brother, scattering the pieces of his dismembered body.
They sailed for Iolcus in Giasone’s ship. Upon Giasone’s arrival, Pelias refused
to relinquish the throne, and Medea used her magic arts to kill him. Pursued by
Pelias’s son Acastus, they fled in the Argo for Corinth, where Giasone married
Medea and she bore him two sons. Years later, Giasone has abandoned Medea
and fallen in love with Glauce, daughter of King Creonte. In return for the fleece,
Creonte has arranged the marriage of Giasone and Glauce.

Act I
In Creonte’s palace, Glauce prepares for her wedding but is tortured by fear of
Medea’s vengeance. Giasone and Creonte try to calm her, and Giasone orders
his crew of Argonauts to lay the Golden Fleece at her feet as a token of his love
and protection. The sight of it frightens her even more, and she senses Medea’s
approach. As the court celebrates the wedding, a stranger arrives at the gates. It
is Medea, who has found her way to Corinth. She claims Giasone and threatens
Glauce. Creonte orders her to leave his kingdom, and the court rushes away.
Medea pleads with Giasone to return to her, but he refuses. Medea swears to
be avenged.

Act II
Outside the city gates, Neris, Medea’s confidante, warns her that a mob is baying
for her blood. Creonte arrives with his soldiers to force her to leave Corinth, but
Medea begs for one single day more. Against his will, Creonte agrees but warns
her that she will die if she stays beyond this time. Neris weeps over Medea’s
bitter fate. Giasone arrives, and Medea asks him to let her see her children one
more time before she leaves. He is moved by her entreaties and agrees. Medea
orders Neris to send a golden robe and a diadem as a wedding gift to Glauce,
but at that moment, they hear praying inside the temple as the marriage is
celebrated. Medea prays to the dark gods to aid her revenge.

Intermission (AT APPROXIMATELY 2:45PM)

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Act III
Outside the temple, as a thunderstorm breaks, Neris delivers Medea’s gifts to
Glauce. Medea plans to kill her two sons to inflict pain on Giasone, but when
Neris returns with the children, she is unable to raise the dagger, embracing her
sons in tears. She tells Neris that the gifts for Glauce are cursed with powerful
magic and will kill her the moment she puts on the robe and diadem. Neris
begs her to be satisfied with this act of vengeance and to spare her children.
Medea agrees and orders Neris to take her sons into the temple for their own
protection. Left alone, Medea is torn between her love for her sons and her
desire to punish Giasone. She hears sounds of lamentation inside the palace
as Glauce dies an agonizing death, poisoned by Medea’s gifts. She is now
determined to complete her vengeance and goes into the temple, knife in
hand. A crowd gathers outside, demanding Medea’s death. Giasone rushes in,
desperately searching for his sons. Neris runs from the temple and warns him of
Medea’s murderous intent. The doors of the temple open, and Medea emerges
to confront him, covered in her children’s blood. Giasone falls to the ground in
despair as the temple goes up in flames.

—David McVicar

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Visit metopera.org. 39
 In Focus

Luigi Cherubini

Medea
Premiere: Théâtre Feydeau, Paris, 1797 (in French as Médée)
Luigi Cherubini was at the center of a bustling opera scene at the end of the
18th century, and despite his lesser-known status today, many of the musical and
theatrical innovations that people have long associated with Beethoven and
Rossini turn out to be aspects of broader movements of which he was a key
component. His achievement with Medea was thematically forward-looking as
well. Composed during a period of musical transition, the score evokes the noble
gravitas of 18th-century theater while also looking ahead to the more-visceral
beauty of 19th-century Romantic opera. And the spectacle of an empowered
woman who commits heinous crimes but wins our sympathy nonetheless
clearly foreshadows the title characters of Bellini’s Norma, Donizetti’s Lucia di
Lammermoor, and many other memorable 19th-century operatic heroines. But
the opera was not especially successful at its premiere and was reworked in
later productions with additional music replacing the original spoken dialogue
between the numbers (a characteristic of the French operatic genre known as
opéra comique), before being translated into Italian. It was in this form that the
opera returned to the public consciousness in spectacular fashion in the mid-
20th century, with soprano Maria Callas in the supremely difficult title role. Her
now-legendary appearances were key to opening audiences’ appreciation of
the power of myth and the dramatic possibilities of musical genres previously
thought old-fashioned.

The Creators
Luigi Cherubini (1760–1842) was an Italian-born composer who lived most of his
adult life in Paris. He skillfully navigated the radically changing tastes in music
and politics (the two were often intertwined) in those years: He created operas,
chamber music, and religious music depending on the needs of the moment.
His Requiem in C minor (1816) to commemorate the execution of King Louis
XVI in 1793 is perhaps his most famous work, and in his day, he was greatly
admired by Haydn, Beethoven (who considered him the greatest contemporary
composer), Rossini, and Chopin. François-Benoît Hoffman (1760–1828), a
playwright who later gained fame as a journalist covering topics ranging from
music to medicine, provided the opera’s original French libretto. In penning the
opera’s text, Hoffman looked to the play Médée by the great tragedian Pierre
Corneille (1606–85) and the towering tragedy by Euripides (ca. 480–06 BCE).
Bolognese poet, librettist, and early film director Carlo Zangarini (1874–1943)

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 provided the Italian translation for Medea. He also contributed to the libretto
for Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West and translated Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande
into Italian.

The Setting
The opera is set in the Greek city of Corinth, a wealthy and sophisticated locale
already ancient by the time of the events in the opera, a generation or two
before the Trojan War, ca. 1200 BCE. Medea herself is a foreigner from Colchis
(roughly the modern nation of Georgia), a land thought by Greeks to be wealthy
but primitive and which was associated with overly empowered women—the
legendary Amazons were imagined as living nearby.

The Music
Beyond its obvious dramatic power, the score of Medea shows Cherubini’s
abilities in vocal, choral, and instrumental writing. The overture shows the
orchestral mastery that was so admired by Beethoven, as does the brief and
intensely brooding Act III prelude. The vocal writing is magnificent for the
entire cast in both ensembles and solos: The Act I soprano aria for Glauce,
Medea’s rival, “Amore, vieni a me!” is technically challenging but somehow
conveys innocence and naïveté; the Act I trio for Creonte, Glauce, and Giasone,
“Pronube dive, dei custodi,” is ravishing in its elegant tranquility and a welcome
moment of serenity in this work; the mournful aria for Neris, Medea’s maid, is
notable for its sheer beauty. But it is the lead role, of course, that must convey
this entire palate of emotion and more: Her confrontation aria with Giasone in
Act I, “Dei tuoi figli,” followed by their duet at the end of the act, employs the
full spectrum of musical technique and emotional depiction. This range is even
more pronounced in her Act III scenes, from her moment of pity for her children,
“Del fiero duol,” to her final scene of unalloyed fury that ends the opera.

Met History
This season’s performances of Medea mark the opera’s Met premiere. David
McVicar directs a new production (his 12th for the company), which stars Sondra
Radvanovsky in the title role, Janai Brugger as Glauce, Ekaterina Gubanova as
Neris, Matthew Polenzani as Giasone, and Michele Pertusi as Creonte, conducted
by Carlo Rizzi.

Visit metopera.org. 41
Program Note

I
n his Mémoires (1870), Hector Berlioz, reflecting on his student days at the
Paris Conservatory, described then-headmaster Luigi Cherubini as tyrannical,
soulless, and pedantic. A singular example that Berlioz gleefully recounts is
that Cherubini, in an attempt “to prevent the intermingling of the two sexes, except
in the presence of the professors,” required men and women to use different doors
to enter the building. One day, Berlioz inadvertently used the female entrance as
a shortcut to the library, inciting the wrath of Cherubini, who hunted him down.
Berlioz detailed the encounter in living color: “Cherubini entered the reading-
room, his face more cadaverous, his hair more bristling, his eyes more wicked, and
his steps more abrupt than ever.” Thus was cemented for posterity a portrait of
a man whose passions lay in institutions and structure; he was, in fact, known as
an exacting teacher of counterpoint and the author of a set of rules on French
declamation and musical setting.
Cherubini joined the faculty of the fledgling Paris Conservatory in 1795 (he
became director in 1822), and despite the demands of his new position, he began
thinking about an opera on the subject of Medea even as he prepared solfège
exercises for students. He was an exception to the rule that George Bernard Shaw
later devised in Man and Superman (1905): “Those who can, do; those who can’t,
teach.” Cherubini was a master teacher as well as the composer of the meticulous,
imaginative, and very beautiful Medea.
Born in Florence, Cherubini received his earliest training from his father, who
was maestro al cembalo—a high-ranking administrator and musician—at the
Teatro Pergola. By the time he came of age, he had composed no fewer than 18
works, mostly in sacred genres; he then won an apprenticeship with Giuseppe Sarti,
who tutored him in opera composition. He ultimately found his home in Paris, at
one of the city’s most important opera houses, the Théâtre Feydeau, where he was
appointed composer-in-residence.
This small company of performers was established in January of 1789 and
managed to survive the violence of the French Revolution with a chameleon-like
ability to switch sides. Its founders were Marie Antoinette’s hairdresser Léonard-
Axis Autier and the renowned violinist Giovanni Battista Viotti, who named it the
Théâtre de Monsieur after its noble patron Monsieur, Comte de Provence, the
brother of King Louis XVI. Within six months, on July 14, the Bastille was stormed
in an act of violence that defined the end of the Ancien Régime. The company’s
original home was in the Tuileries Palace, but after the beheading of Marie
Antoinette, they thought it best to move house and change its name to Feydeau,
after its new street location.
The Feydeau was a theater originally devoted to Italian opera, but it then
turned to opéra comique and produced such works as Pierre Gaveaux’s Léonore,
ou l’Amour Conjugal (Leonore, or Conjugal Love), which became Beethoven’s
model for Fidelio. The most distinctive characteristic of opéra comique was spoken
dialogue, which Cherubini used in his original version of the opera, Médée (1797).
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The opera was well received, and not least for its theatrical effects. Audiences were
especially delighted with Medea’s “getaway vehicle,” a dragon-drawn chariot.
Sometimes the spectacle was a greater attraction than the drama; the anonymous
writer for Le Censeur Dramatique took as much pleasure in observing the audience
as he did in watching the show: “[Even though] the dragons did not vomit flames,
on the other hand the rain of fire which follows the departure of Medea was very
well executed to the great satisfaction of the spectators of the day, who have much
more taste for ... artifice than all the beauties of this tragedy.”
In the 19th century, Médée was performed throughout Europe. The opera
passed through many hands and was adapted along the way. The most important
changes were made by the German composer Franz Lachner, who wrote music for
the spoken dialogue, and Carlo Zangarini (a librettist for Puccini’s La Fanciulla del
West), who translated the text into what has become the standard Italian version
of the work: Medea.

Cherubini composed Medea during an “enlightened” age concerned with the

equality of men; women, however, made few material gains. Women could, though,
triumph at the theater, most frequently in comedies such as Beaumarchais’s
“Figaro” plays, in which women always outwit men. But the Greeks had long before
initiated a tradition of strong female characters, such as Atalanta, Clytemnestra,
and Electra, who could vanquish men, even by means of force. They had physical
strength, athletic prowess, uncanny intuition, and sometimes magical powers.
Medea was a demi-goddess, a descendent of Helios, with a distinct mortal flaw:
She fell madly in love with Jason, who had come to Colchis intent upon stealing
the Golden Fleece, with which he could “buy” the throne of Iolcus. The love-
besotted Medea, in exchange for a promise of marriage, used her special powers
to help Jason obtain the Fleece. She didn’t flinch at murder or dismemberment to
achieve her goals; in her case, crime paid. The mission and the marriage were by all
accounts successful, and the couple lived happily with their children, at least until
Jason’s ambition led him to another woman. Medea would not suffer rejection and
abandonment; her wrath well surpassed the depth of her love for both Jason and
her children.
The volatile Medea has inspired opera composers since the 17th century, but
the earliest works were sometimes refitted with a happy ending to satisfy local
tastes or censorship. Examples include Cavalli’s Giasone (1649), a convoluted
tale of mismatched lovers (among them, Medea) who are eventually united. In
Handel’s Teseo (1713), Medea is rejected by King Egeo, who decides that marrying
a sorceress is a bad idea; he suggests that she instead marry Teseo. Instead,
Medea, in a fit of rage, tries to set the palace aflame while flying over it in a chariot
pulled by two fire-breathing dragons. But Minerva intervenes, banishes Medea,
Visit metopera.org. 43
Program Note CONTINUED

and thus paves the way for a happy ending. Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Médée
(1693), however, adheres to the original story, as Medea flees in her dragon-drawn
chariot after setting fire to Corinth.

Carl Maria von Weber, the composer of Der Freischütz (1821) as well as a
respected music critic, called Cherubini “one of the few really great artistic figures
today, a classical composer and discoverer of new and individual paths ... whose
temperament coincides with that most common at the present time, the Romantic.”
Weber most admired Cherubini’s imagination, attention to detail, and, above all,
his clarity of intention, achieved through “the most sharply defined means.”
Medea is a lean, character-driven drama with a single focus: the wrath of a
woman scorned. As the critic in the The Saturday Review of June 10, 1865,
observed, “The whole musical setting forth of Medea proves that Cherubini had
mentally grasped the subject before putting pen to paper.” Musically, Cherubini
adopted some of the reforms instituted in the mid-18th century by Gluck: Arias
must be purged of meaningless vocal displays intended only to exhibit a singer’s
technical prowess, and the orchestra must play an integral role in the drama. The
words must be heard, and musical numbers must arise out of dramatic necessity.
Among the many beauties of Medea is the clarity of its structure. A sinister
cloud hangs heavily in the air across the whole work as each of the three acts is
prefaced by an instrumental prelude in a minor key—a reiterated warning that one
should not expect things to end happily. From a bird’s-eye view, the large-scale
structure can be understood as a crescendo that gradually and seamlessly hurtles
toward the raging tempest of Act III. Within that dramatic tidal wave, Cherubini
offers much variety, always integrating his orchestra with the vocal line and often
employing solo instruments as alter egos.
The Act I curtain rises on a conversation in progress. Glauce is uneasy about
marrying a man who had a long-term relationship with the sorceress Medea;
her attendants do their best to cheer her. The music is stylistically unique to the
work: Cherubini bathes the entire scene in major keys and provides Glauce with
a lovely flute obbligato and the only coloratura passage in the opera. Glauce’s
fears are realized when the veiled Medea interrupts the celebration and confronts
Giasone (Jason). Their duet is a conflagration of bile, bitterness, threats, and curses.
Cascading chromatic figures in the strings foreshadow two tempests to come, one
near and one far: the storm that opens Act III, and the as yet unborn “Dies Irae”
(“Day of Wrath”) of Verdi’s Requiem (1874).
In Act II, Cherubini provides a musical oasis in Neris’s gorgeous “duet” with
a solo bassoon that empathizes with her grief and amplifies her sorrow. The
finale, however, follows the inner-act tradition of ending at the point of maximum
tension. The scene features two simultaneous musical and dramatic actions: There
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are joyful choruses as the wedding procession marches steadily into the temple,
praying for the god of love to descend and bless the union of Giasone and Glauce;
Medea, observing from the outside, swears revenge, and beseeches the same
god to “smile on her fury and laugh with me.” The combination of offstage ritual
punctuated by reactions from an onstage character once again evokes sounds of
the future, this time the Judgment Scene from Verdi’s Aida (1871).
Medea is essentially a one-woman show in which the title character lurches
between reason and insanity; she must elicit both pity and horror from the
spectators. The soprano who undertakes the role faces her biggest challenge
in Act III: about 20 minutes of unbridled passion. Medea summons the furies,
embraces her children, and sinks into the madness that enables her to do the
unthinkable. She sets the temple aflame and, as she disappears into the fire (or
flies off in a dragon-drawn chariot), hurls a final curse at Giasone: “See you in hell!”

—Helen M. Greenwald
Helen M. Greenwald is chair of the department of music history at New England
Conservatory and editor of The Oxford Handbook of Opera.

Visit metopera.org. 45
 The Cast and Creative Team

Carlo Rizz1
conductor (milan, italy)

this season   Medea, Tosca, and Don Carlo at the Met; Il Trovatore and
Roméo et Juliette at the Paris Opera; Manon Lescaut at the Bavarian
State Opera; and Aida in Tokyo.
met appearances  Since his 1993 debut leading La Bohème, he has
conducted more than 200 performances of 16 operas, including Tosca, Mefistofele, Turandot,
Norma, La Traviata, Nabucco, Il Trovatore, Cavalleria Rusticana, Pagliacci, Aida, Lucia di
Lammermoor, Madama Butterfly, Rigoletto, L’Elisir d’Amore, and Il Barbiere di Siviglia.
career highlights  Since 2015, he has served as conductor laureate of Welsh National Opera,
where he held two tenures as music director, 1992–2001 and 2004–08. Since launching his
conducting career in 1982 with Donizetti’s L’Ajo nell’Imbarazzo, he has led more than 100
different operas, a repertoire rich in both Italian works and the music of Wagner, Strauss,
Britten, and Janáček. He has also conducted performances at La Scala, Covent Garden, Dutch
National Opera, the Norwegian National Opera, the Canadian Opera Company, Pesaro’s
Rossini Opera Festival, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the Deutsche Oper Berlin, among others.

David McVicar
director and set designer (glasgow, scotland)

this season  Medea and Fedora at the Met, Il Trittico at Scottish

Opera, and Macbeth at the Canadian Opera Company.
met productions  Don Carlos, Agrippina, Adriana Lecouvreur, Tosca,
Norma, Roberto Devereux, Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci, Maria
Stuarda, Anna Bolena, Giulio Cesare, and Il Trovatore (debut, 2009).
career highlights  He has created productions for many of the world’s leading opera
companies, including La Scala, the Vienna State Opera, the Salzburg Festival, Opera Australia,
St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre, the Glyndebourne Festival, English National Opera, San
Francisco Opera, the Santa Fe Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and in Geneva, Madrid, Aix-
en-Provence, Tokyo, Strasbourg, Brussels, and Paris, among others.

Doey Lüthi
costume designer (berlin, germany)

this season  Medea at the Met for her debut and the Greek National
Opera.
career highlights  Most recently, her designs have appeared in Madama
Butterfly and Cimarosa’s L’Italiana in Londra in Frankfurt, Braunfels’s
Die Vögel and a double bill of de Falla’s El Amor Brujo and Janáček’s The Diary of One Who
Disappeared in Strasbourg, and Cavalli’s La Calisto at La Scala. She collaborated on productions
of Handel’s Tamerlano and Olga Neuwirth’s Lost Highway in Frankfurt, Martinů’s The Greek
Passion at Opera North, Péter Eötvös’s Tri Sestry in Yekaterinburg, Handel’s Il Trionfo del Tempo e
del Disinganno in Copenhagen, The Rake’s Progress in Braunschweig, Peter Grimes in Karlsruhe,
Giulio Cesare at English National Opera, Salome in Saarbrücken, and Handel’s’ Imeneo at the

46
Glimmerglass Festival, among many others. She designs costumes for theater, dance, and opera
and has worked in numerous theaters throughout Europe, including Staatsoper Berlin, the
Deutsche Oper Berlin, Staatsoper Hannover, the Norwegian National Opera, Gothenburg Opera
Dance Company, and in Bordeaux, Vienna, and Basel.

Paule Constable
lighting designer (brighton, england)

this season  Medea at the Met and Greek National Opera, and

Pelléas et Mélisande at LA Opera.
met productions  Agrippina, Così fan tutte, Norma, Roberto Devereux,
Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci, The Merry Widow, Le Nozze di
Figaro, Giulio Cesare, Don Giovanni, Anna Bolena, and Philip Glass’s Satyagraha (debut, 2008).
career highlights  She has received two Tony Awards and five Olivier Awards, as well as
numerous Critics’ Circle and Drama Desk Awards and the Helpman Award. She is a Royal
Designer for Industry. Her designs for the opera stage have also appeared at the Vienna State
Opera, Covent Garden, Glyndebourne Festival, English National Opera, Scottish Opera, San
Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Polish National Opera, Finnish National Opera,
Norwegian National Opera, and in Paris, Strasbourg, Tokyo, Geneva, and Florence, among
many others.

S. Katy Tucker
projection designer (beacon, new york )

this season  Medea and Peter Grimes at the Met, Medea at the

Greek National Opera, Michael Kunze and Sylvester Levay’s Rebecca
in Vienna, Elektra and Il Trovatore at Washington National Opera, and
Mason Bates’s The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs at Utah Opera.
met productions  Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice, Verdi’s Requiem: The Met Remembers 9/11,
Mefistofele, and Prince Igor (debut, 2014).
career highlights  She designs video and projections for live performance internationally,
working frequently in opera and collaborating with composers and musicians, including Paul
McCartney, Helga Davis, Pamela Z, Paola Prestini, Amanda Gookin, and conductor David
Robertson. Her work has been seen at New York City Ballet, Carnegie Hall, Park Avenue
Armory, BAM, San Francisco Opera, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dutch National Opera,
Sydney Opera House, Houston Grand Opera, and the Canadian Opera Company, among
others. She began her career as a painter and installation artist, exhibiting her work at such
galleries as the Corcoran Museum, Dupont Underground, Dillon Gallery, Artist’s Space in
New York City, and most recently a commissioned installation, Stone Memory, at the Kennedy
Center for Washington National Opera.

Visit metopera.org. 47
 The Cast and Creative Team CONTINUED

Jo Meredith
movement director (northampton, england)

this season  Medea at the Met for her debut and the Greek National
Opera.
career highlights  She is creative director of the National Youth Ballet
of Great Britain and English National Ballet’s ENB Youth Co-nnect. She
has contributed to productions of Eugene Onegin at Opera Holland Park; Cavalli’s La Calisto
and Verdi’s I Masnadieri at La Scala; Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe at Charles Court Opera;
Norma in Madrid; La Bohème at Copenhagen Opera Festival; Heise’s Drot og Marsk at the
Royal Danish Opera; Tosca at the Icelandic Opera; Rigoletto at the Savonlinna Opera Festival;
Handel’s Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno in Berlin; The Picture of Dorian Gray on tour
throughout the United Kingdom; Rossini’s La Scala di Seta and Davies’s The Lighthouse at
the Royal Opera Houses’s Linbury Studio Theatre; Macbeth, A Fairy Queen, and Un Ballo
in Maschera at Iford Arts Festival; and Siegfried and Götterdämmerung at Longborough
Festival Opera; among others. She also restaged Leah Hausman’s movement for David
McVicar’s production of Rigoletto at Covent Garden and in Madrid. She is associate lecturer in
choreography at London Studio Centre and has also created choreography for the education
departments of English National Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, and Sadlers Wells.

Janai Brugger
soprano (darien, illinois)

this season  Glauce in Medea at the Met, Mahler’s Second Symphony

with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony
with the Munich Philharmonic, Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro at LA
Opera, Poulenc’s Gloria with the Bozeman Symphony, Liù in Turandot
at Opera Colorado, and the title role of Floyd’s Susannah at Opera Theater of Saint Louis.
met appearances  Clara in Porgy and Bess, Micaëla in Carmen, Pamina in The Magic Flute,
Jemmy in Guillaume Tell, Helena in The Enchanted Island, and Liù (debut, 2012).
career highlights   Recent performances include Micaëla, Susanna, and Clara at Cincinnati
Opera; Pamina in Die Zauberflöte at Palm Beach Opera; Servilia in La Clemenza di Tito at
LA Opera; and Clara at Dutch National Opera. She has also sung Ilia in Idomeneo and Liù
at Lyric Opera of Chicago; Servilia at Dutch National Opera; Susanna, Juliette in Roméo et
Juliette, and Norina in Don Pasquale at Palm Beach Opera; Pamina in Die Zauberflöte at
Covent Garden; Musetta in La Bohème and Pamina in Die Zauberflöte at LA Opera; and
Micaëla at Washington National Opera, Opera Colorado, and Lyric Opera of Kansas City.

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 Ekaterina Gubanova
mezzo - soprano (moscow, russia )

this season  Neris in Medea and Adalgisa in Norma at the Met, Mother

Marie in Dialogues des Carmélites in Rome, Mahler’s Third Symphony
in Naples, Venus in Tannhäuser at Covent Garden, Kundry in Parsifal
at the Vienna State Opera, Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde in Madrid,
Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the Munich Philharmonic, and Verdi’s Requiem in Lyon.
met appearances  Amneris in Aida, Brangäne, Eboli in Don Carlo, Jane Seymour in Anna
Bolena, Giulietta in Les Contes d’Hoffmann, and Hélène Bezukhova in War and Peace (debut,
2007)
career highlights  Recent performances include Venus and Brangäne at the Bayreuth Festival,
the Foreign Princess in Rusalka in concert in Hamburg, Brangäne and Eboli at the Vienna State
Opera, Amneris in Naples, Ortrud in Lohengrin at Staatsoper Berlin, Jocaste in Stravinsky’s
Oedipus Rex in concert in Barcelona, Otrud and Eboli at St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre,
Jocaste in Enescu’s Œdipe at the Paris Opera, and Brangäne in Bologna and at the Deutsche
Opera Berlin. She has also appeared at La Scala, Covent Garden, the Bavarian State Opera,
Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre, and the Salzburg Festival, among many others.

Sondra Radvanovsky
soprano (berw yn, illinois)

this season  Thetitle role of Medea at the Met; the title role of Tosca
in Zurich, Barcelona, Vancouver, and at the Deutsche Oper Berlin;
Lady Macbeth in Macbeth in Barcelona, at the Canadian Opera
Company, and in concert in Naples; the title role of Turandot in Zurich;
and concerts at Carnegie Hall and in Barcelona, Halifax, and Ljubljana.
met appearances  Since her 1996 debut as Countess Ceprano in Rigoletto, she has sung more
than 200 performances of 27 roles, including Elizabeth I in Roberto Devereux, Amelia in Un
Ballo in Maschera, Leonora in Il Trovatore, Elvira in Ernani, and the title roles of Tosca, Aida,
Norma, Maria Stuarda, and Anna Bolena.
career highlights  She has appeared at most of the world’s major opera houses, including La
Scala, the Bavarian State Opera, Covent Garden, the Vienna State Opera, the Paris Opera,
Paris’s Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Spain’s Castell de Peralada Festival, the Canadian
Opera Company, the Edinburgh International Festival, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of
Chicago, LA Opera, and Washington National Opera, among many others. She is a graduate
of the Met’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program.

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 The Cast and Creative Team CONTINUED

Michele Pertusi
bass (parma , italy)

this season  Creonte in Medea at the Met, Filippo II in Don Carlo in

Naples, Moïse in Rossini’s Moïse et Pharaon and Verdi’s Requiem
in Lyon, de Silva in Ernani in Venice and Valencia, and Pagano in
Verdi’s I Lombardi all Prima Crociata in concert with the Munich Radio
Orchestra.
met appearances  Giorgio in I Puritani, Rodolfo in La Sonnambula, the Tutor in Le Comte Ory,
Count Almaviva (debut, 1997) and Figaro in Le Nozze di Figaro, Leporello in Don Giovanni, Don
Alfonso in Così fan tutte, Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor, and Alidoro in La Cenerentola.
career highlights  Since 1997, he has sung regularly at Pesaro’s Rossini Opera Festival.
He has appeared with many of the world’s leading opera companies, including La Scala,
the Vienna State Opera, the Salzburg Festival, Covent Garden, the Bavarian State Opera,
Staatsoper Berlin, the Paris Opera, Paris’s Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the Finnish National
Opera, the Savonlinna Opera Festival, Spain’s Festival Castell de Peralada, and in Aix-en-
Provence, Verona, Turin, Venice, Parma, Rome, Bologna, Barcelona, Madrid, Liège, Brussels,
Geneva, Zurich, and Tbilisi, among many others.

Matthew Polenzani
tenor (evanston, illinois)

this season  Giasone in Medea at the Met, Orombello in Bellini’s

Beatrice di Tenda in concert and the title role of Don Carlo in
Naples, the title role of Werther at Houston Grand Opera, the Duke
of Mantua in Rigoletto and Hoffmann in Les Contes d’Hoffmann in
Hamburg, Jean in Massenet’s Hérodiade in concert at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and a
concert with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra.
met appearances  Since his 1997 debut as Boyar Khrushchov in Boris Godunov, he has sung
more than 400 performances of 41 roles, including Tamino in The Magic Flute, the Italian
Singer in Der Rosenkavalier, Rodolfo in La Bohème, Macduff in Macbeth, the Duke of
Mantua, Tito in La Clemenza di Tito, and the title roles of Don Carlos, Idomeneo, and
Roberto Devereux.
career highlights  He has appeared at most of the world’s greatest opera houses,
including the Paris Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Vienna State Opera, La Scala, Covent
Garden, Salzburg Festival, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and in Madrid,
Zurich, Frankfurt, Barcelona, Aix-en-Provence, and Rome, among others. He was the
2008 recipient of the Met’s Beverly Sills Artist Award, established by Agnes Varis and Karl
Leichtman.

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